Nikki Haley tries one last time to vilify Hamas - a look at her speech
Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has been incessant in her defense of Israel at the U.N., and recently oversaw the U.S. withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council. | Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
On December 6th, Ambassador Nikki Haley urged the UN General Assembly to do something new: condemn Hamas. She had prepared a resolution with 7 actions - one of which condemns Israel’s actions without naming Israel (calling for “the cessation of all forms of violence and intimidation directed against medical and humanitarian personnel,” a transgression of which only Israel is guilty.
After Haley’s resolution failed (87 in favor, 57 against, and 36 abstentions - short of the 2/3 needed to pass the resolution], the UN body went on to present a different resolution - one that reaffirmed its call for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. It sailed through with 156 in favor, 6 against (the usual suspects), and 12 abstentions.
The resolution “also reiterates its call for an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967, including of East Jerusalem, and reaffirms its unwavering support for the two-State solution based on the pre-1967 borders.”
But let’s do a little fact-checking and analysis of Nikki’s attempt to persuade the UN to move in a new direction.
The UN’s abysmal past
(Transcript from Jerusalem Post)
Good afternoon. Today could be a historic day at the United Nations. Or it could be just another ordinary day.
Today could be a day in which the UN General Assembly unconditionally speaks out with moral clarity against one of the most obvious and grotesque cases of terrorism in the world.
[She elaborates below: the grotesque terrorism refers to “flaming kites and balloons by the thousands, often with Nazi symbols on them.” Might she be overstating the case a bit?]
Or it could be a day in which it refuses to do that.
[And indeed, it was the second kind of day.]
Ladies and gentlemen, last Friday the General Assembly approved six resolutions condemning Israel in a single day. Six. In an average year, the UN votes against Israel 20 times. Over the years, the UN has voted to condemn Israel over 500 times…the United States finds that record appalling…
[Notiec that Haley is appalled by the number of resolutions, not by Israel’s actions in that require condemnation. She does not comment on whether the accusations are factual, but only on how they prove an anti-Israel bias.]
The question before us now is whether the UN thinks terrorism is acceptable if, and only if, it is directed at Israel. That is something we should all think deeply about.
[This is absurd: the question before the UN at that moment was whether Hamas is a terror organization or a resistance movement. The elephant in the room - which Haley invariably refuses to acknowledge - is the terror coming from Israel.]
…What this resolution does is stand for a foundational element of peace. That foundation is the rejection of terrorism, because we all know there can be no peace without a mutual agreement that terrorism is unacceptable.
[This terrorism would be in the form of kites, balloons, and rockets - not snipers or demolition equipment, not torture devices or tear gas canisters. The issue in the UN is not that it refuses to reject terrorism, but that it considers Israel’s actions to be terrorism - and Nikki Haley doesn’t.]
Let’s talk about some of the activities of Hamas, an entity designated by the United States, the European Union, and others as a terrorist organization. Hamas’ charter openly calls for the destruction of Israel.
[The original Hamas charter contained strong wording, but the 2017 revision takes a more moderate tone and does not call for Israel’s destruction. If Amb. Haley doesn’t know about the revised charter, she hasn’t been doing her homework; if she does know about it, she is deceiving her audience.]
Over the years, Hamas has used several barbaric terrorist attacks. Initially, they used suicide bombers…killing hundreds…Since then, they moved toward firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel from Gaza.
[Hamas - and other groups not affiliated with Hamas - have been firing rockets since Israel imposed a crushing and illegal blockade on Gaza. Because Haley (among others) refuses to connect Hamas’ actions with the blockade, she characterizes Hamas as a terrorist organization trying to annihilate Israel, instead of recognizing that it is resisting the blockade.]
They [Hamas] have launched thousands of them [rockets] in the last five years, including more than 400 in a two-day period just last month. Neighborhoods were targeted. A bus was hit by an anti-tank missile.
[Israel partisans love to quote the number of rockets, but never mention the number of casualties. Peacetime Israeli deaths from rockets number seventeen. Israel’s attacks to “stop the rockets” number approximately 3,900.]
More recently, Hamas tactics have changed again, as it has adopted still more methods of killing Israeli civilians and damaging Israeli civilian property.
[The “more methods of killing” are less lethal than previous methods.]
They have launched flaming kites and balloons by the thousands, often with Nazi symbols on them, into Israeli civilian areas. This is the classic case of terrorism.
[Is it? Kites and balloons are “terrorism,” but snipers are not? Nazi symbols on kites are horrific, but killing medical personnel is not? Note that, while the flaming kites and balloons have caused some crop damage, they have neither killed nor injured anyone; Israel’s response - snipers - have killed over 200 Palestinians.]
And yet, throughout all of this, the United Nations has never once passed a resolution condemning Hamas…That, more than anything else, is a condemnation of the United Nations itself.
[The United Nations is dedicated to justice and self-determination for all peoples, and tenaciously resists as Israel denies both to the Palestinians. The UN also works for worldwide adherence to international laws and conventions - which Israel persistently contravenes. Refusal to condemn Hamas does not bring shame on the UN, but of the states that ignore Israel’s hostility toward all that the UN stands for.]
Today – in this moment – the United Nations can change that awful record.
The world is coming to recognize the dangerous and troubling rise in antisemitism around the globe….And yet, what the UN chooses to do today will speak volumes about each country’s seriousness when it comes to condemning antisemitism.
Because there is nothing more anti-Semitic than saying terrorism is not terrorism when it’s used against the Jewish people and the Jewish State…
[Referring again to the updated Hamas Charter: Hamas very clearly states that it has nothing against Jews, but against Zionism - the ideology that caused Palestinians to lose most of their land, freedom, hope, and dignity. It happens that Zionists in the Jewish State are all Jewish.]
I’ve watched countries that would never take such positions on their own come together here at the UN and abandon all sense of honesty, all sense of accuracy, and all sense of truth…
[This is so obviously backwards, it does not require commentary.]
But if that’s not enough to motivate you, then set aside for a moment the death and destruction Hamas has inflicted on Israel. Consider the suffering it has inflicted on the Palestinian people themselves. Hamas has been the de facto government of Gaza since 2007.
Palestinian students do homework by candlelight.
And yet, after 11 years of Hamas rule, Gaza has electricity for only a few hours a day. Only 10 percent of its population has access to safe drinking water. Unemployment is approaching 50 percent and climbing – one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire world.
[Hamas is not withholding electricity, clean water, or jobs from the people of Gaza. There are issues with Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, that complicate matters; however the situation arises from Israel’s de facto occupation of the Gaza Strip. Because Gaza is under occupation/under control of Israel’s forces, it is Israel’s responsibility to protect the people of Gaza - by seeing to it that they have at least the minimum necessary to live in some comfort and dignity.]
Hamas uses torture and arbitrary arrests to punish its political opponents..
[If Ms. Haley wants to criticize Hamas’ use of torture and arbitrary arrest, she should also condemn Israel’s much more extensive use of both.]
All while Hamas spends its resources – including UN resources – on rockets and terror tunnels.
[Israel’s use of $3.2 billion in US aid each year for its military is different only in magnitude - and in the fact that Israel is not labeled a “terrorist organization.”]
The people who have suffered by far the most because of Hamas are the Palestinian people.
[Clearly, this should read, “The people who have suffered by far the most because of Israel are the Palestinian people.”]
…The resolution condemns Hamas rocket attacks on innocent civilians. It demands that Hamas and other militant groups end all violent attacks, including the use of flaming kites.
[Did she just use the words “violent attacks” and “kites” in the same sentence?]
I want to take a personal moment and ask my Arab brothers and sisters: is the hatred that strong? Is the hatred toward Israel so strong that you’ll defend a terrorist organization, one that is directly causing harm to the Palestinian people? Isn’t it time to let that go? For true peace and security in the entire region, isn’t it time for both sides to let this go?
[Nikki Haley again insists that the conflict is due to Arab hatred instead of Israeli injustice - this is why she never got anywhere in the United Nations. Only Israel and the US (and a few lackeys) were able to sustain the kind of denial that pins the blame on the Arab world.]
For the sake of peace, and for the sake of this institution, I respectfully urge my colleagues to support the United States’ resolution.
[For the sake of peace - with justice - here’s hoping that President Trump will appoint a more reasonable ambassador to replace Nikki Haley. But it’s not likely to happen.]
